I Find Your Lack of an Email Nurture Campaign … Disturbing

If you’re a marketer reading this and you haven’t already created an email nurturing campaign that gets beyond simply sharing your latest content, ask yourself “why not?” And no, having a single transactional email triggered when someone submits a contact form still doesn’t count. Cleverly worded though it might be.

According to the Annuitas Group, companies that use marketing automation see a 451% increase in qualified leads. So, why would you leave money on the table? Money that you’ve likely already spent attracting people to your website?

We recently put out a longer piece on the basics of email drip campaigns, but here are some tips that can help you get started today.

Get a message out immediately

If you had someone sign up for more information on your site, why didn’t you follow-up immediately? According to this study in the Harvard business review, businesses see a lead qualification rate that is 21 times greater when a lead is contacted within five minutes versus 30 minutes.

This message can be as simple as a “Welcome to the family,” or “Message Received, we’ll be in touch.” responder. Something is better than nothing, though if that something is personalized and targeted, that more the better!

Send them the information they’re looking for

It just takes a moment to sit down and think about user intent. If someone is looking for more information about Widget X or Y Service, send them some of your best material about that exact topic. You know what landing page the user submitted on, right? (You should!) The signals about intent are there and all that is stopping you from getting the right information in front of these potential customers is you.

Break it down. How many contact forms do you have? Can you segment these down into similar intent types? If you said five forms, with two of those being for sales, two that are on product or solution pages, and one that is for a general contact page, you might only have three entry tracks. If you’re comfortable starting here, build your campaigns now. If you have the time, it’s also nice to have links to landing pages for similar content. You gave your potential customer what they wanted and more. Everyone loves getting more.

Make and keep commitments to build credibility

Let your respondents know what they can expect to come next. If they have asked to be contacted, let them know when that will be and be specific. Also, manage the expectation internally. Let your sales staff know that a lead from this campaign is expecting a contact on the timeline you set.

Did your contact ask for more information about a product or solution? If you’re planning on dripping five pieces over the next month, let them know. You could say, “You’re reading piece one, about Product.” Then, “Next week, we’ll send you Piece Two, our Use Case Study.” This progression is commonly known as nurture nurturing.

Circle back. Look at those metrics. Can you improve it with a few tweaks?

Notice that we didn’t mention A/B testing above? It’s because we didn’t want to overcomplicate things, especially if your main issue is just getting started. However, once you’ve created your first few campaigns, maybe you should consider circling back. Did the open rates look bad for an email? Maybe take a peek at the title and content that appears in an inbox? Are your click rates sub-optimal? Maybe your CTA isn’t readily visible, or perhaps your hook isn’t compelling enough. Most platforms will allow you to A/B test to see what combination works best.

And that’s it. Wait, that’s it?

No, of course not. Be curious and push the envelope… if you have time. If you’re strapped for bandwidth, most platforms have training courses that can answer specific questions or can even walk you through creating a basic nurture campaign. But take it beyond the absolute basics if at all possible! You know your customers better than anyone. Let your knowledge about what they’d truly appreciate reading from you be your guide, and the rest will fall into place pretty naturally.

Matthew is a Client Partner at Portent who has more than seven years of account management experience. A native of Hawaii, he survives cold Seattle winters with karaoke, outrigger canoe paddling, spam musubi and cheesy sci-fi shows.